Every year on the August 14 feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, one or another social media acquaintance posts these words attributed to him: “The most deadly poison of our time is indifference.”
My conscience stings every time I read that. Am I indifferent? Am I not doing enough stuff? Maybe, but there’s more to the saint’s statement. This is the part that doesn’t make it onto the memes.
“…And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
He wasn’t talking about indifference to the news or politics. I wish he had been; that’s easier for me to remedy. If that were the case I could just keep doing what I do, only more of it.
But instead there’s this: the praise of God should know no limits.
I’m busy. I do stuff. I have a family. There’s a pandemic going on. I have bills to pay and work goals to meet. I make my Morning Offering and then move on from there. Some days that’s the only spiritual box I check, but at least I check it.
Box-checking looks feeble – downright indifferent – in the face of praise that “should know no limits.”
That’s something for me to work on.
Ellen Kolb 